Fifty years is a long time. Don’t let anyone tell you anything else — although to be accurate, it’s felt more like this: The first 18 years took about 45 years, and the subsequent 32 years have taken about five.

And here I am at an AARP-eligible 50. I am more freaked out about 50 than I was about 40, so I’m in Vegas right now, living in denial and pretending I can still rage deep into the night. This entry is being posted automagically because God knows I don’t plan on having the time and mental acuity to write something like this while I’m in Vegas.

Here’s some highlights of what I can remember so far:

• Riding the tricycle off the wall in front of the house and breaking my nose.
• Going to kindergarten and being puzzled about why so many kids were crying.
• Heading to I.C. for what genuinely seemed like a life sentence — it never, ever ended, until it did.
• Miss Braun in third grade, a great teacher.
• Terrible teachers in seventh and (especially) eighth grade. I blame most of my struggles with abstract math on them to this day.
• Helias High School, a fantastic place to learn and grow up. I am so grateful I went there. Coach Jeffries: I still use your note-taking method and there are some scoundrels out there who wish you hadn’t taught me that.
• Karen, my first real high school girlfriend. This is the last you’ll read about relationships here except for the one involving my wife. She reads this blog and insists I never dated anyone else.
• Central Missouri State University, a good school to attend if you want to be a commercial pilot or a police officer.
• Hard summer job: Highway crew.
• Fantastic summer job: Camp counselor.
• The Jefferson City News Tribune, where I learned that you can’t be a civilian and a journalist at the same time, even in your home town.
• The Southeast Missourian, a decent little paper with a good group of folks working there.
• The Arkansas Democrat, filled with loonies (in a good way).
• Nun of The Above. Nobody hears from Paco any more.
• Mom passes too soon and I learned that mortality isn’t an abstract concept.
• Memphis, for too short a time.
• The Neighbors section of the Commercial Appeal, where I learned that even good newspapers have bad jobs.
• Moving to Washington, listening to the sirens from my Capitol Hill stoop on my first night and wondering what I had gotten myself into.
• Winning the Journalism Lottery and taking a four-year journey that included hundreds of days on the road covering one of the best presidential campaigns ever, followed by two years of covering the White House for the president’s home town newspaper.
• The Confabulators, followed by the Tone Popes and the Joe Chiocca Band.
• Meeting Kristi-Sue, to whom I was immediately attracted even as every warning klaxon in my body blared ‘STAY AWAY!’ It took a few years to get past that. She’s been the love of my life for nearly 16 years now.
• “You know something about computers, don’t you? We need somebody…”
• CQ, a place that made me proud to be a journalist.
• A wedding that was about as far from the Washington standard as you can get.
• CNN.com and my politics section co-workers. You were spectacular and I had to lay you off anyway. I haven’t forgotten any of you. I occasionally still run into Mike at the Safeway.
• AOL. A mistake.
• USA TODAY, a place I still miss but a company run by executives who are ignoring the Spider-Man Creed.
• Dad passes at about the right time and I learned that you can be sad and proud all at once.
• NPR, which might yet restore my faith in journalism.
• Fifty trips around the sun, to quote a phrase I picked up from my friend Bill. I don’t know what is coming next but it sure hasn’t been dull so far.